Robert L. Sorensen was on the UMSL Department of Economics faculty from fall 1970 through fall 2013. Following his retirement in 2014, he still occasionally teaches for us, first as a Founder’s Professor and then as a Professor Emeritus. Bob received his Ph.D. from Virginia Polytechnic Institute. His primary field of interest is industrial organization. He was Department Chair twice, served as Director of Undergraduate Studies for 12 years and as Director of Graduate Studies for 14 years. Over the course of his career, he taught 17 different courses. In 1990 he received the Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Bob also serves as a consulting editor for a variety of economics journals. He is the author of over 25 publications with recent publications including: "Are Net Discount Rates Stationary? Implications for Present Value Calculations" in the Journal of Risk Insurance, 1994; "High Tuition, Financial Aid and Cross Subsidization: Do Needy Students Really Benefit?" in the Southern Economic Journal, 1992; "Student Financial Aid as Subsidies to Institutions of Higher Learning: What School Benefit?" in Research in Higher Education, 1991; "What Determines Price Elasticity of Demand?" in International Journal of Industrial Organization, 1986; and "Pricing, Price Dispersion and Information", in the Journal of Economics and Business, 1986. He also published papers in Economic Inquiry, European Economics Review, and the Journal of Industrial Economics.
The Robert L. Sorensen Scholarship is awarded to a full-time (12 or more hours per semester) undergraduate with a declared major in economics or to a graduate student enrolled in the Economics MA with at least 6 credit hours in Economics. Undergraduate recipients must have an overall GPA of 3.0 (or better) and an Economics GPA of 3.0 (or better). Graduate students must have a graduate GPA of 3.25 (or higher).
